Key facts about Pennsylvania's pension debt

The Daily Local’s’March 21 editorial on public employee pensions misses out on some key facts.

The Commonwealth’s pension debt isn’t a result of employee benefits in the future. The problem is the mistakes of the past – the pension debt caused by the 12 years of employer Commonwealth and school district underfunding of the workers’ pension system.

Those mistakes should not have been allowed to happen – but once corrected, the system is very sustainable. Thanks to the 2010 pension reform law, the employer cost for new workers’ benefits is only 2.2 percent of salary. New proposals to alter the current pension system will have to beat that 2.2 percent solution in order to justify the change.

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Public school employees (like me) never missed a payment for our pensions, contributing 7.5 percent of our salaries, even when the employers did not contribute a dime. Now Gov. Tom Corbett wants to cut the retirement I’ve earned by 26 percent.

Gov. Corbett’s proposal to put all new public employees in 401(k)-style retirement plans is also no solution. He claims it will save the taxpayers money, but that’s untrue. The AARP recently had this to say about the Corbett plan: “It would provide lesser benefits that cost taxpayers more money to provide.”

Actuarial studies in 12 states clearly show that switching plans increases pension debt. Independent experts in these 12 states concluded that modifying defined benefit pension plans to lower long-term costs and increase employee contributions — both of which Pennsylvania did in the Pension Reform Act of 2010 — is more cost-efficient.

Alaska, Michigan, and West Virginia experienced more pension debt or higher taxpayer costs. In Alaska, employer costs tripled after a similar move.

DR. PAMELA BROWN

Lincoln University

Still has right to due process

This is in response to Elwood Dixon’s letter regarding his approval of the administration’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to kill Americans.

I agree with him that if they plan and plot against America, they deserve to be justly punished. However, this is not an issue of crime and punishment; rather, it is an issue of constitutionality and due process.

Mr. Dixon states that his impression is that saving American lives is of the utmost importance. However, it is not. The men and women of the armed forces are sworn to protect the Constitution, first and foremost. And the Fifth Amendment guarantees Americans the right to due process, a right which the administration violated when they killed an American without first giving him due process.

I hate it when Americans die fighting wars in foreign lands. However, they all know the risks involved in serving their country, but each one of them has decided to join the military despite the dangers, and for that I have the utmost respect for all veterans and active military personnel. They are the only reason I can sit here and write my opinions.

Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began over a decade ago, both the Bush and Obama administrations violated the Constitution under the guise of national security, and Mr. Dixon’s letter shows that many Americans have bought their arguments hook, line and sicker.

The Founders of this nation developed the Constitution to protect people from governments, and the more power we give to our government without question, the closer we are to becoming a totalitarian state ... a state in which citizens can be killed because someone in government considers them a threat.